However, unlike the Deep South, the Republican Party had sufficient historic Unionist white support from the mountains and northwestern Piedmont to gain one-third of the statewide vote total in most general elections,[3] where turnout was higher than elsewhere in the former Confederacy due substantially to the state’s early abolition of the poll tax in 1920.

[6] In 1928, anti-Catholicism in the Outer Banks and growing middle-class urban Republicanism in Piedmont cities turned North Carolina to GOP nominee Herbert Hoover,[7] but this was sharply and severely reversed with the coming of the Great Depression.

[10] Additionally, the state was among the least isolationist and strongly supported aid to Britain during the early phase of World War II,[11] while the absence of a statewide white primary meant local response to the landmark court case of Smith v. Allwright was generally calm.

[5] However, the precarious health of incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt produced strong Southern opposition to vice-President Henry A. Wallace, who was viewed as a dangerous liberal throughout the region.

[17][18] This was nonetheless a decline of over fifteen percentage points upon Roosevelt’s 1940 performance, reflecting the significant isolationism in Appalachia,[19] alongside developing hostility towards Democratic liberalism on racial issues.